The Light Between Oceans(91)

‘No …’ Tom said. ‘I’ll see her. Thank you.’

‘Up to you.’

A few moments later, Hannah entered, followed by Constable Garstone bearing a small wooden chair. He placed it a few feet from the bars.

‘I’ll leave the door open, Mrs Roennfeldt, and wait outside. Or I can stay here if you’d prefer?’

‘There’s no need. I won’t be long.’

Garstone gave one of his pouts and jangled his keys. ‘Right. I’ll leave you to it, ma’am,’ he said, and marched back down the corridor.

Hannah stared in silence, taking in every inch of Tom: the small hook-shaped shrapnel scar just below his left ear; the unattached ear lobes, the fingers that were long and fine despite their calluses.

He submitted to her inspection without flinching, like quarry offering itself up to a hunter at close range. All the while, scenes flashed through his mind – the boat, the body, the rattle, each fresh and vivid. Then other memories – writing the first letter late at night in the Graysmarks’ kitchen, the churning in his gut as he chose the words; the smoothness of Lucy’s skin, her giggle, the way her hair floated like seaweed as he held her in the water at Shipwreck Beach. The moment he discovered he had known the mother of the child all along. He could feel the sweat on his back.

‘Thank you for letting me see you, Mr Sherbourne …’

If Hannah had sworn at him or hurled her chair at the bars, Tom would have been less shocked than at this civility.

‘I realise you didn’t have to.’

He gave just a slight nod.

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ she went on. ‘Until a few weeks ago, if I’d thought of you at all, it would have been with gratitude. But it turns out you were the one I should have been afraid of that night, not the drunk. “Being over there changes a man,” you said. “Can’t tell the difference between right and wrong.” I finally understand what you meant.’

In a steady voice she asked, ‘I need to know: was this really all your doing?’

Tom nodded, slowly and gravely.

Pain flitted across Hannah’s face, as if she had been slapped. ‘Are you sorry for what you did?’

The question stabbed him, and he focussed on a knot in the floorboard. ‘I’m sorrier than I can say.’

‘Didn’t you even think for a moment that the child might have had a mother? Didn’t it occur to you that she might be loved and missed?’ She looked about the cell, then back to Tom. ‘Why? If I could understand why you did it …’

His jaw was rigid. ‘I really can’t say why I did what I did.’

‘Try. Please?’

She deserved the truth. But there was nothing he could say to her without betraying Isabel. He had done what mattered – Lucy had been returned, and he was taking the consequences. The rest was just words. ‘Really. I can’t tell you.’

‘That policeman from Albany thinks you killed my husband. Did you?’

He looked her straight in the eye. ‘I swear to you, he was already dead when I found him … I know I should have done things differently. I’m truly sorry how much harm the decisions I’ve made since that day have done. But your husband was already dead.’

She took a deep breath, about to leave.

‘Do what you like to me. I’m not asking for forgiveness,’ Tom said, ‘… but my wife – had no choice. She loves that little girl. She cared for her like she was the only thing in the world. Show her some mercy.’

The bitterness in Hannah’s face faded to weary sadness. ‘Frank was a lovely man,’ she said, and walked slowly back down the corridor.

In the dim light, Tom listened to the cicadas that seemed to tick the seconds away, thousands at a time. He became aware of opening and closing his hands, as though they might take him somewhere his feet could not. He looked at them, and for a moment, considered all they had done. This collection of cells and muscles and thoughts was his life – and yet surely there was more to it. He came back to the present, to the hot walls and the thick air. The last rung of the ladder that might lead him out of hell had been taken away.



For hours at a time, Isabel put Tom from her mind: as she helped her mother around the house; as she looked at the paintings Violet had kept, done by Lucy during her brief visits back; as she felt ever more deeply the grief of losing her child. Then thoughts of Tom would creep back and she pictured the letter Ralph had delivered, banished to the drawer.

Gwen had promised to bring Lucy to see her again, but she hadn’t appeared at the park in the days afterwards, even though Isabel had waited for hours. But she must stay firm, while there was the merest sliver of a hope of seeing her daughter again. She must hate Tom, for Lucy’s sake. And yet. She took the letter out, observed the tear in the corner where she had begun to open it. She put it back, and hurried out to the park, to wait, just in case.



‘Tell me what you want me to do, Tom. You know I want to help you. Please, just tell me what to do.’ Bluey’s voice was tight and his eyes glistened.

‘Nothing more needs doing, Blue.’ Tom’s cell was hot, and smelled of carbolic from the mopping an hour earlier.

‘I wish to Christ I’d never seen that bloody rattle. Should have kept me trap shut.’ He gripped the bars. ‘That sergeant from Albany came to see me, asking all sorts of questions about you – whether you were handy with your fists, whether you were a drinker. He’s been to see Ralph, too. People are talking about – they’re talking about murder, for Pete’s sake, Tom. Down the pub they’re talking about hanging!’